Many of the largest Houston-area school districts recently have rolled out new policies and practices to prevent staff from issuing illegal suspensions to homeless students, months after a Houston Landing investigation revealed thousands of instances of the banned practice across Texas.

The new strategies include regular audits of student discipline, digital alerts that flag potentially illegal suspensions, plans for ensuring offending campuses don’t continue the practice and other tactics. One district, Conroe ISD, said it circulated the Landing’s investigation to its top brass to raise awareness of the issue.

Meanwhile, some other districts — including those that appear to have issued dozens of illegal suspensions — did not outline changes or did not offer comments in response to questions from the Landing.

Under a 2019 state law passed with wide bipartisan support, Texas schools can only kick students experiencing homelessness off campus for infractions related to violence, weapons, drugs or alcohol. Legislators supported the law because many unhoused students rely on school for shelter, hot meals, showers and more.

However, over the past five years, hundreds of Texas school districts have issued out-of-school suspensions to thousands of homeless students for offenses that did not involve those serious violations, the Landing’s May investigation revealed.

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Texas schools illegally suspended thousands of homeless students — and nobody stopped them

by Asher Lehrer-Small / Staff Writer

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A quirk in Texas’ data tracking of homeless students and suspensions makes it impossible to measure the exact number of illegal suspensions and pinpoint which districts are the worst offenders. 

Texas classifies a student as homeless if they spent any amount of time during a school year without housing. As a result, some students were legally suspended at a time when they had housing, yet the data would show they were illegally suspended if they later became homeless. The Landing hasn’t published district-level data on the number of illegal suspensions reported by school districts due to the data quirk.

Still, many Houston-area districts appear to have issued the illegal discipline to hundreds of students, according to state data obtained by the Landing and statements by district officials. 

In August, following the Landing’s report, the Texas Education Agency sent a letter to districts letting them know the agency was taking additional steps to track and prevent the banned suspensions. The TEA said it plans to conduct special analyses of suspension data for “select school systems,” but did not specify what factors would trigger the action. TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said the agency is reviewing 2023-24 discipline data and has not yet notified any districts that they are subject to additional review.

The Landing asked the 10 largest school districts in Greater Houston, plus Alief and Spring ISDs, what, if anything, they have done to boost their efforts to comply with state law.

Here are summaries of their responses, in order of district size:

Houston ISD

HISD trains principals, assistant principals and behavior coordinators on homeless students’ legal protections from certain suspensions, Deputy Chief of Communications Richard Guerra said. Additionally, the district’s Office of Student Discipline monitors schools’ disciplinary actions to ensure they comply with the law.

HISD acknowledged in a district report that it had illegally suspended roughly 1 in 10 students experiencing homelessness in 2022-23. However, Guerra did not specify any new steps HISD has taken this year to address the issue. Moving forward, HISD is “working on ways to update the student information system to allow for specific classifications that will help identify students who may be homeless,” he said.

Cy-Fair ISD

Cy-Fair staff have issued banned suspensions in the past to students experiencing homelessness, said Leslie Francis, assistant superintendent for communication and community relations.

Francis described several changes district staff are making to crack down on the practice, such as conducting “regular audits of suspensions involving homeless students” and requiring principals to complete a “corrective action plan” whenever their campus issues an illegal suspension. Additionally, Cy-Fair has started using discipline software that sends daily alerts regarding prohibited suspensions to campus and district staff, Francis said.

Katy ISD

Katy conducts staff training sessions to “help identify and correct misassigned disciplinary actions,” General Manager for Media Relations Rachel Ross said. She did not respond to a question about whether Katy implemented or enhanced those offerings in response to the TEA’s August letter to administrators.

Ross said the number of illegal suspensions Katy ISD staff have issued has “steadily declined” in recent years. The state data did not show a clear decrease in the suspensions.

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Fort Bend ISD

Did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Conroe ISD

Conroe internal records did not show any illegal suspensions issued to homeless students in 2022-23, the most recent year for which data are available, Executive Director of Communications Sarah Blakelock said. However, a small number of the banned suspensions do show up in the state’s Conroe ISD data. Blakelock attributed the discrepancy to the quirks in the state’s data.

Still, Blakelock described several steps Conroe has taken to ensure students experiencing homelessness do not receive banned suspensions. 

District officials provided training and several digital resources to campus administrators and staff who work with homeless students, informing them of the 2019 law’s provisions, she said. The district also sent the Landing’s investigation to its top administrators. Additionally, Conroe plans to conduct regular audits of all discipline issued to students identified as homeless to ensure the punishments comply with the law, Blakelock said.

Aldine ISD

In Aldine, some illegal suspensions in the past likely were due to staff not knowing students’ homeless status, Director of External Communications Mike Keeney said. 

Now, Aldine’s Student Services Office sends letters to campus and district staff when a school issues an illegal suspension to a student experiencing homelessness, Keeney said. Following the letter, staff must create an action plan aimed at preventing the illegal discipline in the future.

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Klein ISD

Klein provides annual training to staff working with homeless students about the 2019 law, Executive Director of Communications Justin Elbert said.

In addition, Klein’s homelessness liaison for the district now checks the records of all students experiencing homelessness in the district “to see if there are disciplinary actions taken that are problematic,” Elbert said. If staff identify such instances, they coordinate to find “alternative, on-campus disciplinary measures that comply with state law.”

Humble ISD

Humble Chief Communications Officer Jamie Mount acknowledged campus and district leaders had, in some instances, “inadvertently issued out-of-school suspensions to students whose discipline should have been addressed in another way.” 

“We are working to correct that misunderstanding because we recognize that students experiencing homelessness face challenges and have additional rights under the law,” Mount said.

In addition to ongoing training around how to best serve students experiencing homelessness, Humble ISD said it will add a digital alert specifically meant to prevent illegal suspensions.

“The district is planning to place a pop-up message that advises, ‘Check before suspending out-of-school’ on the student information screen of students who have rights under the education code,” Mount said.

Pasadena ISD

Pasadena Communication Director Arturo Del Barrio acknowledged rare instances of the district issuing illegal suspensions to homeless students, but he argued most of the suspensions that appear in state data were not illegal.

Regardless, Pasadena has made several changes to its online records to ensure students experiencing homelessness do not receive banned suspensions, Del Barrio said. The district programmed a new icon in students’ files noting their homeless status, to flag that information to school administrators. Additionally, Pasadena is adding a digital reminder about the 2019 suspension law anytime staff assign discipline to students coded as homeless. 

“A pop-up menu will alert the administrator that he/she must proceed with discipline that aligns with (legal) criteria,” Del Barrio said.

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Lamar CISD

Lamar reviewed its internal data and found district staff had issued banned suspensions to 21 students in 2022-23, Chief Communications Officer Sonya Cole-Hamilton said.

Lamar will continue to provide its staff with training regarding legal guidelines and best practices for serving students experiencing homelessness, Cole-Hamilton said. In addition, the district will add new training meant to help staff support students, including programs such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and Capturing Kids’ Hearts. Cole-Hamilton said district leaders would work with campuses that have high rates of suspensions to create plans for avoiding illegal suspensions.

Alief ISD

Alief reviewed its internal data and found district staff had issued banned suspensions to 15 students in 2022-23, Chief of Communications Kristyn Hunt Cathey said. However, the state data shows a higher number.

To address the issue, Alief trained staff to look in student records to see if they have legal protections from certain discipline before issuing suspensions, Hunt Cathey said. Additionally, the district created a “critical alert code” in its digital recordkeeping meant to prevent staff from issuing banned suspensions.

The TEA told Alief it may require the district to provide the agency with internal records following the state’s initial review, Hunt Cathey said.

Spring ISD

Spring holds “comprehensive training sessions” for school administrators to make sure they follow state laws, including those regarding suspension of students experiencing homelessness, Chief of Communications Shane Strubhart said.

Although the training had been in place in previous years, more staff now receive it, Strubhart said. 

“This year, the team is diving deeper into the training, expanding training to multiple departments who impact our homeless students,” he said. 

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.

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